Archives

Categories

Meta

Public performance of watching: discussion

I hope you had are having good summers. Mine too busy. No watching sad face.

I was approached by Amanda Herman who runs Live Art Magazine, a live art-based variety show that has an emphasis on work that is created for the show and isn’t documented other than by artists’ sketches, to have the Watching Club participate in this year’s show on Oct 21. This year’s theme is “listening,” and Amanda thought that The Watching Club had an interesting resonance with the theme.

It’s held at the Academy of Music, an old theater (think opera-house eque if you don’t know it) music venue run by the City of Northampton.

One of my professors (J… V…) recommended us. I typed up a few proposals (including a bunch that didn’t involve The Watching Club), and the Watching Club is the one that Amanda is interested in.

I told her I would approach the Rule Group to see if we can do it – and if we think it fits within the scope of what The Watching Club should do.

Below was the draft proposal, in the format she requested (part 2 is a list of tech requirements):

1. The Watching Club. Members of the Watching Club who are able to attend (I have to round up our small club, which I probably can do) would sit in an opera box (or somewhere more subtle perhaps) and watch the audience for the entire duration of the show, according to the rules of The Watching Club (www.thewatchingclub.org). At some point and for 4 minutes (or less), we would have the rules of the watching club scroll on a large screen, without audio commentary. Listed in the program would be a brief description of the club. (What I like about this option: it feels a little creepy and subversive – at the same time it performs as a kind of conceptual art – and it taps into the “listening” concept by bringing this to a few different levels.)

2. Tech: I’d need a projector capable of playing a video file, and I’d need some chairs set up in an opera box, and I’d want to distribute flyers or some other information about The Watching Club.

Thoughts?

Thoughts: OH, MAN! This is great!! …

The watching Club MUST participate if it can. Watching those watching is the ultimate learning experience for us, no?

The West Coast rules committee gives a thumbs up to the idea.

—–

YES! I am so excited to read these emails. I vote yes. I can’t wait to participate. I agree with Maureen. … Should we watch before this event as well?